One of my favorite things about the Enneagram is its holistic capacity to bring balance and integration to our overall experience.  I’ve heard it described as a psycho-spiritual tool, one that provides benefits on a psychological and spiritual plane.  It definitely does this.  However if we dismiss the rich insight the Enneagram provides to us on a somatic level, we are missing out on the gifts it brings to our physical wholeness day after day.  

You may have heard about the concept of three intelligence centers—body, heart, and mind—frequently taught in Enneagram circles.  Basically, this proves that we are actually three-brained beings (heart, body,  mind)   instead of one-brained beings (mind),  as has been elevated in our western modern world.  Recent scientific studies are finally catching up to this ancient wisdom of the Enneagram by proving we have neural cells not just in our brains, but in the lining of our stomachs and hearts.  Crazy, right?

So why does this matter to you and me?  Excellent question.

It matters because depending on your Enneagram type, you experience the world most vividly through one of these intelligence centers.   Eights, Nines, and Ones—through  the body center of intelligence, Twos, Threes, and Fours—through the heart center of intelligence, and Fives, Sixes, and Sevens—through the head center of intelligence.  

Whichever triad you fall into is like your home base, or go-to intelligence.   Of course we have all three, however one is dominant.   

This is good information because it also informs where we may be out of balance.  As a type four, I tend to be a little too governed by my feelings.  I can’t feel my way to a deadline.  I need to bring in agencies such as fact-checking and action in order to round out my squishy over-identification with feelings.  

The Enneagram is all about bringing balance and openness where there is imbalance and contraction.  

When we do the work of the Enneagram, we discover our personality type and deeper character structure are held into place by our type’s emotional patterns, thought patterns, and somatic profile.  I love getting to work with clients to bring awareness to this unique type-specific picture and begin to relax these often limiting patterns.  As we relax those conditioned patterns, we are able to open up to the true, or unconditioned self that has been buried under years of habit and automatic behaviors.  

Do you long to experience a more embodied, balanced life?  If so, you’ve come to the right place.